Songfacts®:

• Written by the Judas Priest songwriting triumvirate of Rob Halford, Glenn Tipton, and K. K. Downing, "Rapid Fire" is a doomsday song, with Halford singing of something or someone taking a battering ram to the world. The title doesn't show up in the lyric - "rapid fire" refers to the unrelenting pace of the song.
• This is the opening track on Judas Priest's sixth album, British Steel, a heavy metal landmark. The band recorded it at Tittenhurst Park, the estate in England the Ringo Starr owned at the time and was previously occupied by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
• Guitarist K.K. Downing recalled to Billboard magazine: "It's unusual in the way it starts in that it kind of gets going pretty fast. Traditionally, Priest was into a big intro, but this was straight-ahead 'Let's go!' which was really unique for Priest."
• Downing added: "The song structure is quite unusual, really. It goes to the C twice, then goes down to G. I'm like, "Why did we do that? What were we thinking?" Even I don't know, to this day."